Large Photovoltaic Plant Announced

July 10, 2009

Large Photovoltaic Plant Announced

A sprawling solar farm is planned for sunny central Washington State.

A private investment group called Teanaway Solar Reserve
says that it plans to build a massive 75-megawatt solar facility that will sprawl
over some 400 acres in Cle Elum, WA, a rural area about 80 miles east of
Seattle. The solar farm will be by far the largest in the Northwest, and much larger
than any existing photovoltaic plant anywhere. (A 60-megawatt plant in Spain now
holds the world record, while a 14-megawatt photovoltaic facility at Nellis Air
Force Base, in Nevada, is the largest photovoltaic facility in the United States.)
However, the solar facility in
Washington is only one of several larger photovoltaic plants that have been
recently announced, including several in California that would exceed 200 megawatts;
a 60-megawatt plant is planned
for Chicago.

Washington appears to be an odd location for a solar plant.
While central Washington is, unlike Seattle, actually quite sunny–Howard
Trott, Teanaway’s managing director, estimates that the location has 300 sunny days
a year–it is also home to some of the country’s cheapest
electricity because of its hydroelectric capacity. However, Trott says,
Washington’s consumers will favor photovoltaic-generated electricity because it
is “very green,” and they will pay a premium for it, “which will make us profitable.”

Trott declined to disclose many financial details of the
project or his company except to say that the costs of the solar farm will
likely “run north of a hundred million.” His plan calls for a solar producer to
build a manufacturing facility at the site to provide the 400,000 panels that the
solar farm will need. Trott, who acknowledges that he has no previous experience in
the solar industry, says that it has not yet been decided whether the new solar
facility will use conventional silicon solar cells or thin-film photovoltaics. Indeed, it is still very early days for the
private solar company and its Washington project. Says Trott: “Yesterday, we
rented an office.”